Waters calls for case to be dismissed

Rep. Maxine Waters is calling for the House Ethics Committee to dismiss the long-running case against her, claiming she can’t get fair treatment from the secretive panel in the wake of allegations that staffers improperly shared information in an investigation into her finances.

Waters (D-Calif.), who is threatening to bring her fight to the House floor, was reacting to a POLITICO story Monday that included internal emails, memos and documents from inside the Ethics Committee that revealed bitter internal disputes on the panel over the allegations against Waters. Blake Chisam, the former staff director and chief counsel for the Ethics Committee, accused the two lead investigators on the Waters case of secretly feeding information to Republicans on the Ethics Committee, including Alabama Rep. Jo Bonner. Chisam also accused the staffers of misleading lawmakers and other staff on the status of the Waters investigation. Bonner is now chairman of the Ethics Committee.

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The two former Ethics Committee staffers in question, Morgan Kim and Stacey Sovereign, have in turn accused Chisam and his former boss, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), of trying to go soft on Democrats like Waters and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.).

“Today’s POLITICO story, and accompanying documents, leave no doubt that the House Ethics Committee violated both its own rules and Rep. Waters’s constitutional rights during its investigation of her matter last Congress,” Stan Brand, Waters’s attorney, said in a statement.

Brand added: “Nonetheless, based on the facts of the case and the record of committee misconduct, the only remedy that vindicates the principals of the quasi-judicial functions of the [Ethics] Committee is immediate dismissal with prejudice. No other remedy exists to cure this misconduct. Given that both current members and staff are implicated in these documents, any other suggested remedy would lack legal credibility and would confirm an unprecedented level of bias against my client.”

Brand, a former House general counsel, said Waters “would explore all of our options to bring this matter to a conclusion.” In December, Waters offered a privileged resolution calling for an investigation into how her case was handled, but she later withdrew the resolution.

With the Ethics Committee expected to meet this week on the Waters case, the unprecedented look at its dirty laundry stunned lawmakers, staff and ethics experts, both on and off Capitol Hill.

“It’s a disaster over there,” said a top House GOP aide, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I don’t see how they get out of this mess.”

For instance, Ethics Committee staffers were still preparing a report in June 2010 on former Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.), according to confidential panel documents obtained by POLITICO, even though Massa had resigned from Congress earlier that year.

Just last week — more than 13 months later — the Ethics Committee finally announced that Bonner and Lofgren would be appointed to take over the Massa investigation. The two will look into whether staffers for Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who was speaker during the 111th Congress, or other top Democrats knew about Massa’s inappropriate behavior and failed to stop it or bring it to the attention of the Ethics Committee.